Barbara's Meanderings

What do you do when a polar bear is coming straight for your tethered dog? This is not a problem we here in the lower 48 states have to think about, but my friend sent me these pictures and I thought that I'd post them. The polar bear in these pictures looks like the tamest and most well-behaved ever. I think what I like best about them is the gentle expression on its face and the compassion the bear shows to the dog. See for yourself. Scroll down and see the polar bear in its natural setting.

I've always hated that baby polar bears have been clubbed to death and imagine the horror a mother polar bear feels when this is done to her baby. The behavior you see here is the opposite of how you think a polar bear would react in the wild. But here is a good reason to protect these gentle creatures.

looks on in horror and worries the dog is now food for the bear.
The bear comes close to the dog and look at the expression on

its face.
Then it throws its paws around the dog and hugs it. Look

how sweet its face is.
Afterward the two stand quietly together in a friendly almost

human moment. They seem to be communicating wordlessly.
The polar bear holds the dog in the crook of its arm as if to

warm it or protect it from the elements. It looks more like

a furry blanket here than a giant polar bear.
Finally the bear feels secure and lays down at the feet of

the dog. The bear's expression is calm and peaceful. Its mouth

has been closed the whole time.

Synopsis

GHOST FOR RENT

This middle grade, paranormal, ghost story is aimed at youth in grades four to six. It is approximately 13,280 words, 10 chapters, and 65 pages long. The story begins when eleven year old Wendy Wiles learns her parents are planning to get divorced. Forced to leave her beloved city home for a cheaper country place, Wendy, her mother, and her twelve year old brother move to rural Warren, Oregon.

On move-in day, Wendy meets a neighbor girl who tells her their quaint country home is haunted. Events proceed quickly as Wendy, her new friend, Jennifer, and Wendy’s brother, Mike, see ghostly figures dancing in the woods. Despite Mom’s claims that “there’s no such thing as ghosts,” paranormal events continue to occur in the Wiles’ home. Meanwhile her brother Mike, arch-tease, continues to torment Wendy, claiming he’s causing the unusual happenings.

Wendy searches through library records to get to the bottom of the mystery. Finally with Jennifer’s help, Wendy begins to unravel the truth. At last even Mike can no longer disbelieve and decides to aid Wendy in her search. By the end of the story, the three young sleuths have uncovered an accidental death, a suicide and a murder.

Her middle grade novel Ghost for Rent, in trade paper back is available at http://www.hardshell.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=0759910057 and as an eBook at

Today I am posting a quote I recently saw that expressed how I feel about expressing feelings. As you can see, it comes from a writer from the nineteenth century. She was a brave forerunner for the women who are now commonplace as authors. Yet at the time she wrote it was highly unusual for women to be well known authors. She lived from 1821-1881 and during that time she constantly challenged the accepted mores for time in which she lived. In this biographical information we can see why she might have written this about feelings.

Welcome Pierre Dominique Rostan, author of THE CAINE LETTERS to my blog as my guest author for this week. Due to technical difficulties we are a bit late, but we are adding a day or two to this event for you. Computer problems are not foreign to many of us, so I'm sure we all understand!:)

Let's begin:

Barbara: Would you please tell us all the origin of your name?
Pierre: Allow me to introduce myself then! Pierre Dominique Roustan. Yes, you readers out there can say it: it’s a cool name. And that’s because I’m cool. I’m a 2nd generation Hispanic, born in Chicago, Illinois, son to a fiery Puerto Rican woman and a tough-as-nails Nicaraguan man. And, yet, you ask why I have such a French name…. Because my dad’s half-French. Yes. It’s true.

Barbara: Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Pierre: I’ve been writing ever since I remembered being able to walk. It was one of those things you just couldn’t get away from, you know? My parents had me tested for giftedness, and the results came back showing I was gifted. What gift(s) I had? Wasn’t sure. Didn’t care. So much so that I sometimes omit the pronouns when I write. However, my parents cared, teachers cared, others cared; and they saw something in me. It didn’t take me long to realize that I loved to write—poetry, fiction, nonfiction, anything. I just had this need to fill the white space on a piece of paper with some sort of manifestation of my imagination (that’s a mouthful there), so much so that I followed my heart and earned a B.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Barbara: It’s wonderful when you know what you want to do when you are so small.:)

Barbara: What have you written before this?
Pierre: I write urban fantasy and thrillers (and sometimes those two genres go together for me). My debut is a fast-paced thriller known as THE CAIN LETTERS. Look for it. However, it wasn’t my first finished manuscript, nor my first project. I actually wrote my first ‘story’ at the tender age of 10, I believe. It was about 20 pages long. The next ‘story’ I wrote landed me a 200-pager. I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but I think I was a freshman in high school. I then wrote another story that stretched to 300 pages long. Here’s the real kicker, though; the next project I took on actually pulled in about 540 pages…. 154,000 words, and the best part about that was I, initially, thought that was too short!

Barbara: How long did it take you to publish THE CAINE LETTERS?
Pierre: The writing of THE CAIN LETTERS at 74,000 words moved fast. I had learned a lot about storytelling, about pacing, about plot, about character. THE CAIN LETTERS is a culmination of all that I’ve learned.
For those aspiring writers out there, let me tell you: following a dream kills. The good thing, though, is your passion for writing makes you reborn every single time. Through every rejection, every bout with writer’s block, every setback, anything getting in your way, that desire to write brings you back up. Every single time. Let me tell you how dreaming kills: I received over 100 rejections for THE CAIN LETTERS, about 97% of them from literary agents. And those 100 rejections were spread over one year, almost to the day. The middle of March, 2008, was when I finished the manuscript. I just signed my contract with Eirelander Publishing about four days ago—without a literary agent. Funny how time flies.
You never know what’ll happen. I just learned to keep trying. It paid off.

Barbara: That is very good advice for aspiring writers. You are a very good example of never giving up no matter how many rejections you receive.

Barbara: Please tell us about your book THE CAINE LETTERS.
Pierre: Those who’ve followed my blog might know a bit here and there about the book and the characters, but let me paint a picture for you real quick:
Enter: Alexandra Glade who is an auburn-haired, gray-eyed beauty of a woman, black trench coat, turtleneck and tight pants, armed to the teeth with all kinds of weaponry. Think “The Matrix”, “Underworld”, “Blade” with a little bit of sex appeal, and there’s Alexandra for you.
Barbara: Okay, I’m hooked. Please tell us some more about the story. Pierre: With her team, an organization known as the Berith Lochem, Hebrew for ‘Divine Covenant’, Alexandra hunted rogue vampires and other abominations for the sake of God alongside her comrade Kyan Tanaka, a Japanese man bred into the world of a mercenary until he found God. With remarkable resources, the Berith Lochem served the Vatican and other clients looking for a cleansing of some kind. They were like bounty hunters.

It was easy, you know? Hunting vampires. The life was so linear. And simple. Until a strange book surfaced that seemed to be of some interest to many of the damned—most notably two master vampires of cunning strength and power, two of the strongest in the world, actually—a Russian known as Nikolas Stahl and a savage Los Angeles native named Mason Richter. The book had ancient knowledge regarding something that had been locked away, secret, since the beginning of time—The origin of the vampire. How it all began.

Barbara: Yikes! Can you tell us some more without giving away the whole book?
Pierre: No longer was Alexandra’s life so linear. Her journey suddenly came upon forks of all kinds. And obstacles. The book, dating way back to the times of the Exodus, revealed the origin. And it was a shocking one. One that would shake the pillars of the world, of faith—The world’s first vampire was the world’s first murderer. Fitting. And terrifying.

Barbara: Oh my goodness! Would you tell us who this is?
Pierre: Yes. It was Cain, brother of Abel, son to Adam and Eve, had struck a deal with Satan to cleanse himself of the guilt, the shame, the despair of a dying world and the mark of banishment on him. The cleansing took away his humanity, took away his soul even—and made him into what was commonly known as…vampire.

Barbara: Why would he do something like that?

Pierre: He was driven by blood, as a reminder of Abel’s blood on his hands, Cain walked the earth. Immortal.

Barbara: So what do Alexandra and her team, plan to do with this information?

Pierre: What Alexandra realized was that Nikolas and Mason planned on finding Cain. The secret book revealed his hidden location for so many centuries. What Alexandra feared was what they intended to do once they found him—It didn’t take her long to realize that they were planning on killing him. These two master vampires, countless ages apart from a man of the book of Genesis, were going to silence the father of the damned.

Now on any other day, Alexandra Glade, Berith Lochem vampire hunter of vengeance, wouldn’t have a problem with the idea of the father of the damned dying. But she knew Scripture. And what she knew terrified her even more than Cain….

Barbara: Wow! I’m always a sucker for someone who wants to save the world. Would you be able to tell us more?

Pierre: She couldn’t allow Nikolas and Mason to kill Cain.... For the sake of the world hung in the balance. Cain had to live. All her training, all her scars, anything that made her a hunter, she had to forsake so she could protect the very first vampire from death. All to save mankind.

Barbara: This is quite a decision. How could she make it?
Pierre: Could she make such a decision? With her duty,her need to hunt and kill vampires, her fierce vengeance…. Could she reject all of that…. And save a fierce killer like Cain?

Barbara: Are you going to tell us what decision she makes?

Pierre: I’ll let that simmer in you a little bit. I can’t give all of it away, people. Come on! You’ll have to read the book when it debuts.

Barbara: I wish it were being published earlier. Do you have any sample chapters we can read?
Pierre: I can't attach any sample chapters unfortunately.

Barbara: Where did you get the idea for your novel?
Pierre: I'm quite proud of how I came about the idea. It's very simple: I'm fascinated with vampirism, the whole mythology of it. I'm also a devoted Christian, and the idea of researching Christian theory and merging it with concepts of vampirism interested me. I read up on theory behind the recent bestseller THE HISTORIAN, also common mythological stories involving vampirism and also research in the Old Testament and found that I was onto something. I was definitely onto something for myself given that I'm a fan of "The Matrix", "Underworld" and "Blade" as well as Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE. In seconds, I knew I had a high concept I was instantly satisfied with.

Barbara: Do you have any plans to write more books?

Pierre: THE CAIN LETTERS is, indeed, a beginning of what is most definitely a series for me. Having landed a contract, you’ll see a few more continuations, following the adventures of Alexandra Glade and the Berith Lochem. But until then, face the fear that is THE CAIN LETTERS. And believe. Believe in evil.

Barbara: How do you feel about eBooks and the Kindle?
Pierre: I love that question: it pertains to the now. And the now is so important when it comes to the publishing industry. I have to say being a 'reader' for 'recreation' is a whole lot different than being a 'reader' as an 'author' (especially when I'm saddled with heavy edits for the manuscript--it's a tough job but somebody's gotta do it). A few years ago, if I were to answer that question, it would be "don't care for eBooks or Kindle, don't want it, don't know what it is, don't care what it is, don't want to know what it is, may I have some macaroni and cheese?".

Now, though, the answer is very different; you see, as an author, I've found myself interested in other people's work--on a literary level, sometimes more than on a recreational level. I have many friends who aspire to be published, who have Microsoft Word files carrying their prized treasures of manuscripts galore for me to read. But you see? I have this problem. It's called my back. And my back doesn't like it when I sit at the chair at my desktop (I don't have a laptop, which sucks) for hours at a time reading a book via Microsoft Word.

Knowing that, the prospect of having a Kindle, reading an eBook, is so much more exciting for me. And for my back. It's that much more convenient, too. But listen.... I'll always be a good ol' fashioned print paperback hardcover reader who loves that fine paper smell and the sweet sound of turning pages. But let's face it--when I write as much as I do, I read a lot more. I mean A LOT more. And the idea of having a Kindle and being able to purchase eBooks for both fun AND work is a very good idea. Don't get me wrong, though--I have my favorite authors (Stephen King, Terry Goodkind, J.K. Rowling, Terry Brooks, John Grisham, Tim O'Brien, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe etc etc.), and those authors deserve a place on the real-life materialistic bookshelf gathering dust until I'm graced with the desire to pull them out and immerse myself in their lost souls of words. But every once in awhile, it's nice to pull out the Kindle, purchase a book and read while on a plane, or on a boat, or on a train. Or anywhere for that matter. Convenience--that's what it's all about.

Barbara: How are you planning on marketing this book?
Pierre: Watch the sweat pour down my face as I even think about such a question. That's like jumping into shark-infested waters with a Super Soaker and thinking I'll survive (little do I know that the Super Soaker's loaded with some kind of shark repellent, thank God). Marketing. Heh. Well, essentially, I'm marketing my book RIGHT NOW, Barb. Facebook has also become an incredible asset to the new breed of authors showing up in the publishing industry today. We're taking an initiative now, you know? MySpace is a great place to market a book as well. There are pages on there specifically for main characters, too. It's pretty awesome. That's something I'll be planning on in the near future, too. I have a video book trailer as well, although I'd like to legitimize it and use original material. Something I haven't seen yet from authors but would like to try someday soon is Second Life. I can't imagine the kind of marketing possibilities with Second Life, creating a virtual 'home' online dedicated to the world you've created for your book. The possibilities are endless in this digital age of publishing. It's looking pretty bright.

I'd still like an occasional book tour, though. Hotels are fun. And so is signing books.

Barbara: How do you feel about critique groups? Do you belong to one?
Pierre: Critique groups are incredibly invaluable. But I don't have one. Unfortunately. I find it not so much of a loss when you have a kick-ass editor. I, however, DO have beta-readers. While they don't provide as much of a 'structure' in constructive criticism and feedback as a critique group can, they do provide direction in how to think about your book. But my honest opinion? You have one super-cool, kick-ass (the term 'kick-ass' is almost a must when it comes to critique and editing) person (a.k.a. editor) to help you with your manuscript, you're golden.

Barbara: Would you please give us an idea of your writing process?
Pierre: Listen up, people: my writing process can only be known by very few cherished souls-- I sit down in front of the computer. I eat chips/cookies/ fig newtons/anything sweet. I drink pop/juice/anything with caffeine. I write until my fingers fall off or until I fall asleep on the keyboard. There you have it

Barbara: Thank you so much for being my guest. I have to tell you that vampire books are not my usual genre, but this one looks like it combines a couple of different themes in one story. Do you have anything more to add?

Pierre: That’s all I got for all of you, readers. Give it up for Barbara Ehrentreu as well! Put your hands together. It has been an honor being her guest. Feel free to make as many comments as you like! Barbara and I will be checking. Questions? Concerns? Coffee? Cupcakes? Oh, and stop by “Writing and Reading”, just to check out the scene, check out the pad, http://writingandreading.today.com. I’ll see you later. Taco Supreme.

Please don't forget to ask any questions you might have for Pierre or leave a comment. Remember the drawing will only be for people who have left a comment or question.:)

Until the next time, thank you to all my readers and especially to Shey author of Shey-Strides for the awards she gave me this month.

These are the Friends Award and the

Makes My Heart Smile Award. On my next

post I will announce the winners of these awards

from me.